Do You Think Rockford Is A Suburb Or A City? (Chicago: crime rate, homes)

[Maintainschaos]

Rockford is definitely an independent city. It will still take a while before Chicago's growth extends out that far...but it is getting closer day-by-day.

[prairiestate]

Isn't a suburb of Philadelphia?

[Midwest Revival]

It's a city to me, what is it? Like 50+ Miles out of Chicago? Hey..If we can build a Metra Line out there, I'd consider it a suburb in a heartbeat.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

To my understanding a suburb is going to have a percentage of workers commuting to and from an anchor city.

Chicago being the anchor city to many towns, villages and cities throughout Chicaogland.



Rockford is its own anchor city , with its own media market.

Will it eventually pull together?

Time will tell but not in our lifetime.

[deliz]

Originally Posted by Jons99

Not a suburb, but part of the Chicagoland region, think the same thing about Kankakee County.

Kankakee is part of Chicagoland ??? I don't think so

[pvande55]

Originally Posted by sunnyandcloudydays

To my understanding a suburb is going to have a percentage of workers commuting to and from an anchor city.

Chicago being the anchor city to many towns, villages and cities throughout Chicaogland.



Rockford is its own anchor city , with its own media market.

Will it eventually pull together?

Time will tell but not in our lifetime.

Milwaukee has a percentage of workers commuting to Chicago, even a commuter-type railroad connecting them. But MKE has its own TV stations and busy airport, and its population is a much larger percentage of Chicago's. On the East and West Coasts there are several examples of cities within commuting distance and continuously urbanized but still separate.

[edsg25]

if Rockford were a suburb, that would mean that Galena would be a far northwest suburb and Iowa City a far west suburb.

[linicx]

Kankakee is named in the Chicago extended mMSA. Rockford is a separate MSA anchor city.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by edsg25

if Rockford were a suburb, that would mean that Galena would be a far northwest suburb and Iowa City a far west suburb.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Originally Posted by pvande55

Milwaukee has a percentage of workers commuting to Chicago, even a commuter-type railroad connecting them. But MKE has its own TV stations and busy airport, and its population is a much larger percentage of Chicago's. On the East and West Coasts there are several examples of cities within commuting distance and continuously urbanized but still separate.

First off Milwaukee is not a suburb either.
However it is melting into a mega polis.

If you drove from Chicago to Milwaukee vs Chicago to Rockford
you can clearly see the transformation of what is growing into the mega polis.

There is major differences between the two.




Secondly a large city like Chicago is going to always pull in a distant commuter.
There is a vast difference of people living in Lombard vs. people living in Rockford doing a commute to the city.

Heck even last month they had an article in the paper about execs who supper commute via an airplane to the city.

When you have a large work center like Chicago you will have always have a large commuter pool and the long distance commuter.
this is not the norm rather the exception. (super commute)